


rooftop singers

by orphan_account



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-03
Updated: 2010-10-03
Packaged: 2017-10-12 09:30:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/123433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Inspired by a video from <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/we_are_cities/237873.html#cutid1">we_are_cities</a></p>
    </blockquote>





	rooftop singers

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a video from [we_are_cities](http://community.livejournal.com/we_are_cities/237873.html#cutid1)

_sit on the steps while you take a bath  
and massage your neck, and kiss your face, and hold your hand, and go for a walk_

 

At first, it had hurt like crazy, living everyday life without aim, without that driving force that was figure skating competitions.

It had been there with him since he'd been a little child, the words in his brain, repeating over and over, September, get ready, there's only two months, March, oh finally Worlds, a breath of relief and then starting again, only a few months of not-rest, and show upon show to make money so the bank account would be enough to pay the next year, and the one after that.

It was gone now. There was no need to be afraid anymore, which was nice. There was no need to go crazy anymore, and Stéphane loved going crazy, that feeling of exaltation and adrenaline coursing his body days before he had to skate for the judges.

Still, before, having a relationship would have been impossible. Every skater knew that. Having a social life was a phrase reserved for everyone else. There were some attempts, of course. Six impossible things before breakfast, and figure skaters were renowned for trying the impossible. Mostly, there was a lot of fucking. When he'd been a little boy, he'd watched huge-eyed as the older boys and girls paired up amongst themselves and thought, " _even the girls?_ , because he'd been brought up proper by his parents. "The girls especially," Brian had told him with a sheepish smile that spoke of experimentation and sex in quiet places.

There had been Carolina, but that had been too easy, because they spent a lot of time together skating, and the rest attempting to orgasm thinking about her breasts and desperately failing. It didn't matter, he'd told himself, that something wasn't slotting in place. His parents hadn't brought him up queer.

Of course, he was as gay as a wizard in rainbow robes, and so was Johnny; he'd been fascinated by Johnny since they'd first met, and everyone knew Johnny was gay. He was better than Stéphane. He wasn't trying to hide it, and Stéphane thought, ' _that's what I want to be when I grow up_ '. Johnny being barely a year older didn't matter. It might have been about the sex, too. Johnny was getting lots of great sex, if rumor was to be believed.

They were sort-of-friends, had always been since childhood, though beside the occasional shopping tour around Sofia, Tokyo or Paris, there had not been a lot of time to be better friends. Switzerland and America were not that close, and the money was better spent on things other than time-consuming trips to New Jersey.

Now, though, and that was the big difference, now, retired and off duty, he could visit, especially after the few months they'd trained together, before the injury.

Johnny'd been nice back then. He'd been nice enough to invite Stéphane over to his flat and show him his bedroom and slowly take off his clothes as they kissed. Johnny was _really_ nice, and his skin smelled of almond oil sometimes, and of strawberries others, and he had soft lips and a hard cock and he was hot enough inside that Stéphane wanted to melt into him and never return to his old life.

He liked to wax poetry, but most of it was cheesy and the rest pretentious, so he never told Johnny this. He was also embarrassed when Johnny made him breakfast the next morning and then unceremoniously kicked him out before he had to go to practice, without a goodbye kiss or an invitation to return.

Stéphane had waited for a repeat performance since then, but Johnny'd never said anything, so he'd felt even more embarrassed for thinking there had been _something_. And when he'd returned to Switzerland later, for physiotherapy and tests and hospitals and German doctors, Johnny'd sent a few texts and emails asking how he was doing, but nothing specific. Nothing _more_.

Now, though, in the present, he looked at the ceiling covered in cobwebs and told himself it wasn't silly to sit on the stairs before Johnny's apartment and contemplate his life while he waited for Johnny to return. He told himself he wasn't being pathetic.

He told himself the crazy lady with the cat around her neck had not given him a look half an hour before that said, 'Boy, you are so much weirder than I am.' He was imagining things, was all. He tended to do that a lot.

 

 _and laugh at your -  
\- your paranoia_

 

Johnny returned in jeans and a tight shirt stretched over his chest and when he noticed Stéphane sitting on the steps, he blinked and said, "Huh. Didn't expect you." And that was all.

Like strange people waited for him sitting on the stairs every day.

Stéphane figured it was a distant possibility. Distant, but possible. "Um," he said. "Hi."

Johnny smiled. "Hi!"

Stéphane felt like melting again and said, "I miss you." Because his brain and his mouth had formed an alliance he was clearly not invited to join. He felt his face heat up.

Johnny's smile didn't dim. "And I missed your cookies, even though they make my waist twice the size it's supposed to be." He took out his keys. "Want to come in?"

Stéphane stood and nodded gratefully, not trusting himself to speak more.

Once inside, Johnny put his handbag next to the other twenty handbags neatly aligned on a shelf in the hallway, waited for Stéphane to close the door, then he turned around to give him a once-over. "Just so you know," he said in a casual tone, toeing off his shoes at the same time, their eyes not quite meeting. "I'm not having sex with you again."

Stéphane's stomach tightened and he nodded, biting his lip. His voice was still not allowed to make a come-back.

 

 _want you in the morning  
but let you sleep in for a while  
tell you how much I love   
your eyes  
your lips  
your neck_

 

They had sex again, in the kitchen, with Johnny pulling Stéphane towards himself for kisses, deep tongue-kisses that tasted like dark, rich coffee and low-fat cream, before he went down on his knees and shoved him against the table to take his cock between his lips, licking carefully around the head. Stéphane imagined the coffee-and-cream taste around himself and grasped the table-edge with his hands, white-knuckled. Johnny sucked hard and fast and keened a little when Stéphane pulled his hair, liking it. He moaned when, after Stéphane came, he was pulled up by his elbows and Stéphane pressed his hand against the front of Johnny's jeans, palming him, hot and hard and wanting.

Stéphane didn't say, 'You said we weren't going to do this!', because. Instead, he said, "Bedroom?" And Johnny nodded, a quick incline of his head as he lowered his eyes guiltily and said, lips puffy and spit-glittering, "I want you to fuck me. Did you bring condoms?"

Stéphane had indeed brought condoms, because while he hadn't said anything earlier, he had come with the optimistic hope of getting sex if he wasn't going to get his big romance. He didn't think Johnny was a slut, per se, but it was a remote possibility. Remote, but possible.

Johnny's bed was white and fluffy with lots of big pillows and some stuffed animals from precious fans, and Stéphane loved American beds, not that he'd slept in many. Johnny's bed was impeccably made, and Stéphane took his time spreading him out on it, pleasuring him with his tongue, mapping his body, licking the insides of his elbows and his wrists, his pulse points, every single one, but especially the ones on the insides of his thighs, because they tasted of him, of sweat and arousal and a little bit of come.

He made Johnny beg, and then he let him beg more, sheets thoroughly rumpled, pillows fallen off the bed, and then he licked him open with his tongue, tight when he pressed inside with just the tip, not touching Johnny's dick once. After that, he was completely hard again, and he thought, ' _oh_ ', because now he would be able to go _forever_ and Johnny would have to beg even more to get to come.

He used his fingers, one, two, three, slowly enough to get Johnny to push back with panting sounds of _more, please, more_ , and rocking hips, slicking him up while getting him open, and then he pushed the head of his cock inside, which was hard, and the rest, which was easy.

Johnny came with his neck bared, head thrown back, his mouth open for the kissing, panting hard, sweaty and reddish in the bedroom light, and shuddered around Stéphane still buried inside him, arms around Stéphane's neck, pulling him close like he needed that warmth of their merged bodies more than he wanted it.

Stéphane thought, ' _I want to stay inside you forever_ ', which was horribly tacky, of course, so he didn't say it, just said, "Can I?" and Johnny, eyes glazed, nodded, and said without shame, "I want to feel you come inside me."

Stéphane bit his shoulder while he came, feeling Johnny's legs tighten around his waist, and thought, maybe Johnny wanted to never let go, too.

The next morning, Stéphane woke up first and wondered how long Johnny'd let him stay if he behaved. "I'll be good," he promised and kissed the top of Johnny's nose. He didn't _need_ to count Johnny all the ways he loved him. He would be just fine doing it in silence, too.

 

 _sit on the steps smoking till your neighbours come home,  
sit on the steps smoking till you come home,  
and worry when you're   
late and be amazed when you're early  
I'd give you sunflowers_

 

In Stéphane's defense, he didn't overstay his welcome. He returned to Switzerland and then went on a tour of eastern Europe and he felt like he was in limbo for a while, just floating along, waiting for Johnny to give some indication that he'd like Stéphane to visit again. He wondered for a while, if maybe Johnny was just playing hard to get, but it wasn't the _getting_ that was the problem - it was the keeping him.

In Korea, he bought Johnny a present, a little carved matchbox made of wood and silver, and when Johnny looked at him, incomprehensively, he shrugged and said, "It's for your secrets. You can keep them inside."

Johnny laughed at that, bright and surprised, and took it, and then he reached out and pulled Stéphane close to kiss him, just a peck on the lips. "Thank you."

He'd waited in front of Johnny's hotel room door for about an hour, sitting on the floor with his knees pulled up. He thought it was sweet of Johnny to invite him in, blushing, like they were doing something illicit.

Instead of illicit activities, they sat with their backs to the wall on the bed and talked about the past few weeks of their lives; about Johnny not going to Worlds, and Stéphane performing in Japan, then Johnny told him about his latest ideas to make it in the fashion world and needled Stéphane about maybe, some time, being on a Broadway show, "Maybe in Lion King, you know, you'd make a great hyena", which led to Stéphane tackling him to the bed, laughing, and some tickling that turned into kissing turned into groping turned into falling asleep together.

"What's your favourite flower?" Stéphane asked the next morning, kissing Johnny's arched back as he slowly moved inside him, slowly enough to make Johnny moan into his pillow.

"You're supposed to fuck me," Johnny said, muffled, and moaned again when Stéphane hit that spot inside him that made him tighten his muscles around his erection. "Not _woo_ me."

"I like to woo you," Stéphane smiled against his skin and fucked him harder after that, hard enough to make him come. They didn't have too much time.

Later, during practice, Johnny skated up to him and touched his arm. "I like roses," he said.

Stéphane gifted him with a single sunflower after the show was done, when the whole team went to eat together. No matter how much Johnny begged, what Johnny promised, or blackmailed with, Stéphane didn't tell him how he'd found out about that. He just said, "It's not like I'd ever give you roses."

To which Johnny replied, "Good. And anyway, I like to eat the seeds."

 

 _be sorry when I'm wrong  
and happy when you forgive me_

 

The thing was, they'd never said anything about fidelity, but Stéphane had assumed that part, because he was simple-minded like that. He wasn't even sure, it was just that he arrived late at the airport, and he'd written Johnny when he'd be there (and called too, but nobody'd answered the phone), and Johnny wasn't there to pick him up. Stéphane took a cab, and stayed outside the apartment block until it turned midnight, and then there was still no Johnny, but Paris arrived, looking a little bit drunk, saying, "I had the evening shift, sorry," and let him in. He looked a little pained when he realized why Stéphane was there.

"He'll be back in the morning, I think," he said carefully and led Stéphane to their pull-out couch. "But you're free to stay if you don't want to go to a hotel."

"Thanks, I - I don't want to be a bother," Stéphane stuttered, flustered, and wondered what Johnny was doing, and with whom, and why it would take all night, and trying hard not to see the obvious.

"Don't worry, you're not. I'll just get something to eat and watch the telly a bit, if you don't mind not going to sleep just yet. Do you want something to eat as well?"

"Yes. I mean. Yes, that would be great. Thanks."

"Lots of water, too," Paris said later, when they were sitting on the couch, watching some crappy tv show, with the air awkward between them. "Or I'll have a headache tomorrow. You know how the upsides of working in a bar are the free drinks? Well, the _downsides_ of working in a bar are the free drinks, too."

Stéphane snorted, tried not to giggle at the picture they had to make and failed, and they ended up giggling together, Paris because he was girly and drunk, and Stéphane because he was girly and had no idea what else to be.

He missed Johnny coming home, but when he was woken up by a hand on his shoulder, Johnny was freshly showered, and there were bite marks on his neck, plain as the day, not trying to hide in the least. "What are you doing here?" Johnny asked, not exactly unfriendly.

"Waiting for you to come around," Stéphane said, yawning, and added, "I don't want to share you."

"Oh," Johnny said and nodded. "Okay."

Stéphane didn't think it would be that easy, not by a long shot, but instead of telling Johnny that, he just let him curl up on the couch close enough to feel the warmth of Johnny's skin against his chest and then pulled him closer so they'd be flush, like as if they'd spent the night together instead of in seperate beds, with different people, wanting opposite things.

 

 _melt when you smile  
dissolve when you laugh_

 

Over breakfast, Johnny laughed. Stéphane hid his smile behind Paris' best banana-honey pancakes and told him, "You should at least try a bite, it won't kill you," when Johnny insisted on resisting the temptation.

"You guys are evil," Johnny said, but he was smiling still, broad and sunny, and Stéphane kissed him later, in his room.

When Stéphane opened his eyes from the kiss, when Johnny moved away to fetch his skates to go to the rink, he saw the photograph of them, together, framed on the nightstand, next to the one of his parents, and his brother, and Paris, neat and easy to reach.

It made his fingertips tingle.

 

 _but not understand how you think i'm rejecting you  
when i'm not rejecting you, and_ wonder   
_how you could think i'd_ ever _reject you.  
And wonder who you are.  
But I accept you anyway._

 

Then Stéphane made the mistake of asking if Johnny'd like to spend the summer together. "We could rent a house in the Toscana," he said. "Or just walk Madrid for a week, I'd love to show you my favourite places."

And instead of smiling his beautiful smile and nodding his head, looking happy and excited, Johnny drew his brows together, eyes clouding, and he said angrily, "You might not have a lot of on-ice work these days, but I still have a medal to win next season, and I really can't use the distraction." His voice was sharp and cruel and it was aimed to cut.

Stéphane swallowed and said, "It was just an offer. It's not like I'm forcing you to do anything you don't want to do."

"Well, I'm not going to be your skating replacement, so stop acting like I am, and go get a life."

"You're not any sort of replacement," Stéphane tried, but Johnny just cut him off, shaking his head, saying, "I don't believe you. You've been here whenever you don't have shows or family events. All the time, you're here, just watching me, or fucking me, or making me miss practice in the mornings and - I don't like it. You should go away."

"Don't be stupid," Stéphane said, trying to salvage things. "I _like_ you, that's why I want to spend time with you, and you're beautiful, that's why I like watching you!"

Johnny pushed him away when he tried to step closer, tried to make Johnny _see_. "I don't want that," he said. "Any of that. And you don't even want me, I'm just convenient because I'm here and you're here, and your acting school is nearby. Seriously, you should start working and get your own apartment, if you want to stay near New York. I need to go practice in half an hour."

Stéphane reached out to catch his hand, but Johnny evaded him and slipped away, to his room, to get ready. Stéphane leaned against the wall and thought how he could prove to him that he _wasn't_ just shifting attention from skating to Johnny. It didn't work like that. Did it?

 

 _and tell you about the tree angel  
enchanted forest boy  
who flew across the ocean  
because he loved you_

 

He wrote, 'I'll love you even when I don't see you every day', because it was true. He also wrote, 'I'll love you even when I'm in Switzerland and you're in America, the whole summer'. And he wrote, 'You can't make me stop, but it's okay if you don't want us to be together. I can wait till after the Olympics, and if you still want me then, we can try again.'

The letters were filled with anecdotes about his life and silly attempts to make Johnny laugh, again, and get his heart beating like it had when they'd been lying side by side, listening to each other breathe. He did other things. Spent time with his family, skated, took more acting lessons, and some singing lessons, and taped a few songs, sending the CD to Johnny with the note saying, 'It's not the hyenas, but it'll have to do.'

 

 _I wander the city thinking: it's empty without you_

 

At the end of the summer, Johnny called.

"Remember when you turned up on my doorstep that first time early this year?" he asked, voice hesitant.

"Yeah," Stéphane replied.

"Remember what you said?"

"Yeah."

"I do, too," Johnny said and then they stayed on the line, quiet for a while, before Stéphane said, "All right."

There was even a distinct possibility that it was true. Distinct, he thought. But possible.

 

 _I'll tell you the worst of me  
and try to give you the best of me  
because  
you don't deserve any less_

 _forget who I am  
and let me try and get closer to you_

~*~


End file.
